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Bad Dreams
Bad Dreams is a 1988 American horror film directed by Andrew Fleming, who also wrote the film, along with Michael Dick. It was released on April 8, 1988 by 20th Century Fox. Plot In 1975, a cult called Unity Fields commits mass suicide by fire at the behest of its psychopathic leader, Franklin Harris. A young girl named Cynthia survives the incident, but ends up comatose for 13 years. After awakening from her coma, Cynthia is plagued by horrific flashbacks of her childhood at Unity Fields and begins attending experimental group therapy sessions for borderline personality disorder at the hospital led by Dr. Alex Karmen. Cynthia's visions start becoming more vivid and include Harris, who often appears to her with his flesh burnt. When her roommate, Miriam, is discharged from the hospital, Cynthia has a vision of Harris in the elevator with her; however, the doors close before she's able to warn her. Miriam is found dead on the sidewalk in front of the hospital, having leapt from a window in what appears to be a suicide. A male and female patient are later killed by the blades on an industrial fan in a utility room of the hospital, which Cynthia also attributes to Harris, who she believes that he has come back from the dead to kill the people around her. Ralph, a troubled masochist patient, becomes enamored with Cynthia; one day, they take an elevator to the basement of the hospital. During an episode, he commits suicide by stabbing himself multiple times in the stomach. Awakening from sedation after the incident, Cynthia finds Harris and he urges her to commit suicide. Shortly after, Harris visits Hettie, a clairvoyant patient, in her room. Instead of allowing him to kill her, she drinks formaldehyde she stole from a supply room, effectively killing herself. When Dr. Karmen discovers that Dr. Berrisford, has intentionally laced the therapy group's drugs with psychogenic substances (in the hope that it would effectively make the patients suicidal, and thus corroborate his research), he confronts Cynthia, insisting that her visions of Harris are not real. Dr. Karmen then pulls an emergency alarm in the hospital, which elicits chaos. Cynthia escapes to the rooftop, where Dr. Karmen finds her standing on the ledge. Harris (who is invisible to Dr. Karmen) urges Cynthia to jump. Cynthia leaps from the building, but before hitting the ground below, she awakens back at the house in which the Unity Fields members committed suicide. There, she is confronted by Harris, who welcomes her; however, it is only a vision and she awakens to Dr. Karmen holding her by the arm as she dangles over the ledge. Dr. Berrisford (aware that Dr. Karmen has discovered his plot) goes to the rooftop as well and tries to push Dr. Karmen to his death as well, but he is stopped by hospital security. Berrisford insists that Dr. Karmen is responsible for altering the patients' medication and takes a revolver out of his coat, but before he is able to shoot, Cynthia pushes him off the roof to his death. Cast *Jennifer Rubin as Cynthia Weston **Missy Francis as Young Cynthia *Bruce Abbott as Dr. Alex Karmen *Richard Lynch as Franklin Harris *Harris Yulin as Dr. Berrisford *Dean Cameron as Ralph Pesco *Susan Barnes as Connie *John Scott Clough as Victor *E.G. Daily as Lana *Damita Jo Freeman as Gilda *Louis Giambalvo as Ed *Susan Ruttan as Miriam *Sy Richardson as Detective Wasserman *Sheila Scott-Wilkenson as Hettie *Ben Kronen as Edgar Production "Bad Dreams" was shot on location in Los Angeles, California over a period of eight weeks, with production beginning on October 26, 1987 and concluding in mid-December of 1987. The shooting locations included the California Medical Center and California Medical Building in Los Angeles, California; Lakeview Hospital in Lake View Terrace; and the Brentwood Veterans Hospital. The budget for the film's production was $4.5 million. Box Office "Bad Dreams" opened at #3 at the box office (behind "Beetlejuice" and "Biloxi Blues"), grossing $4,008,870 during its opening weekend. Domestically, it grossed $9,797,098. Reception "Bad Dreams" received largely negative reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave it a half-star out of four, writing: "I praise the production only to suggest that these people should be better employed in worthier projects. It is not surprising to see a violent teenage film exploiting the lowest common denominator and preaching a message of nihilism and despair. It is not surprising to see the latest special-effect technology supplying lingering closeups of burnt flesh and other horrors. What is surprising, I suppose, is that nice people would want to wade in this sewer." Vincent Canby of The New York Times gave the film a middling review, calling it "a breezy, bloody kind of amalgam of The Breakfast Club and A Nightmare on Elm Street... It doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense, plot-wise, and it's instantly forgettable. However, it's amusing for as long as it lasts. Also, for a film of this genre, it has a cast of unusually good actors." Richard Harrington of the Washington Post wrote in his review of the film: "Apparently director Andrew Fleming (who cowrote the story with Steven E. de Souza) didn't dream half enough for a film that hangs '60s counterculture, Jim Jones cultism, psychotherapy and gory murders on a mighty thin plot line." Category:Films Category:1980s films Category:American films Category:20th Century Fox films Category:Horror films Category:R-rated films